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New Finnish study confirms that BMW and Audi owners drive like idiots

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Re: New Finnish study confirms that BMW and Audi owners drive like idiots

#22
I tend to think owning a overly-powerful car (which includes basically all German turbo diesels) is more likely to encourage you to drive fast.

I'm not a great driver... no serious accidents on four wheels in 20 years of motoring, but plenty of very near misses and I've messed myself up on two wheels a few times.

I'm definitely a slower, more careful driver since I got a Prius. It's the kind of car that gives you a few moments to think about why you just put the pedal down before it does anything.

If I drove an S3 or a Tesla P I'd be just another one of those otherwise conscientious idiots driving too fast.

Re: New Finnish study confirms that BMW and Audi owners drive like idiots

#23

Unfortunately I couldn't find a link to an open/free version of the original paper. I'm always extremely sceptical of papers like this that seemed designed to grab headlines and confirm most people's existing biases.

Are you driving a BMW or an Audi by any chance ? ;-)

Well you could be driving two Cadillacs at the same time

And one's going 45, and one's going 99

Re: New Finnish study confirms that BMW and Audi owners drive like idiots

#24

Everyone who drives slower than me is an idiot, everyone who drives faster than me is a maniac [1] [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWPCE2tTLZQ (George Carlin)

I do recommend counting cars you overtake and those that over take you. Turns out I was overtaking 10 cars for every car that overtook me. I've calmed down since then as it really put it in context how fast I was driving.

It does not show anything, most of the cars you overtake are cars that are just preparing for an exit from highway or just entered the highway thus they have slower speed

Re: New Finnish study confirms that BMW and Audi owners drive like idiots

#25
The real title and abstract of the study here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ijop.12642

"Not only assholes drive Mercedes. Besides disagreeable men, also conscientious people drive high-status cars. [--] An important implication is that the association between driving a high-status car and unethical driving behaviour may not, as is commonly argued, be due to the corruptive effects of wealth. Rather, certain personality traits, such as low agreeableness, may be associated with both unethical driving behaviour and with driving a high-status car."

Re: New Finnish study confirms that BMW and Audi owners drive like idiots

#26
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do recommend counting cars you overtake and those that over take you. Turns out I was overtaking 10 cars for every car that overtook me. I've calmed down since then as it really put it in context how fast I was driving.

It does not show anything, most of the cars you overtake are cars that are just preparing for an exit from highway or just entered the highway thus they have slower speed

I do what Mattmanser does on long highways with not too much traffic as a proxy of me going with the flow. I discount merging vehicles, it’s harder to take into account exiting vehicles but with exits being rare that works ok. Also: waze

Re: New Finnish study confirms that BMW and Audi owners drive like idiots

#27
There was a time when BMW's advertizing seemed to be very specifically aimed at the self-important, entitled, yet insecure person, but I think that has changed (or I have just stopped paying attention.) Nowadays, bad driving seems to be more widely spread - a combination of "fuck you, I can do whatever I want", self-absorption and inattention, as typified by the 'pick any lane and drive at any speed' style of driving, and the people who insist on hanging right on my rear quarter.

Re: New Finnish study confirms that BMW and Audi owners drive like idiots

#28

Everyone who drives slower than me is an idiot, everyone who drives faster than me is a maniac [1] [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWPCE2tTLZQ (George Carlin)

Kind of like Isaac Asimov on writing. I can't find it online, but he once said that he writes better than anyone who writes faster, and faster than anyone who writes better.

Re: New Finnish study confirms that BMW and Audi owners drive like idiots

#29
post #10

Unfortunately I couldn't find a link to an open/free version of the original paper. I'm always extremely sceptical of papers like this that seemed designed to grab headlines and confirm most people's existing biases.

https://sci-hub.tw/downloads/2019-12-08/04/10.1002@ijop.1264...

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Re: New Finnish study confirms that BMW and Audi owners drive like idiots

#30

That’s definitely something you notice on the German autobahn. The ones that are 1mm on your rear bumper or constantly give you “Lichthupe” are often smaller Mercedes, BMW or Audi. I have rarely seen sports cars like Porsche or Ferrari behave that way.

often I wish that roads had "wiper" cars that would fill the whole width and drive at the maximum limit and not more. :)
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